


Card Games As Proof Of Intelligence

by sandyk



Category: Fantastic Four (Movieverse)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 16:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reed began to somewhat appreciate Johnny. Slowly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Card Games As Proof Of Intelligence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eldee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldee/gifts).



> Thanks to ladybug and sfa for beta work. All rights not mine, no profit garnered ever.

The first time Reed heard of Johnny was naturally through Sue, when Reed was a teenage genius. "My brother's really different from me," Sue said, scrunching up her nose in a way Reed thought, irrationally and not objectively, was adorable.

She was not, he learned quickly, accurate when she said that. When he met Johnny, it was clear both Sue and Johnny were incredibly aesthetically pleasing, definitely firmly above average. Symmetrical facial features, genetically blessed bodies that could do anything they set their minds to. When Reed was 16, he thought the Storm family was a good one to possibly have children with, since clearly the genes for physical attractiveness were so very strong. Reed didn't think they were so strong on the Richards side, despite what Sue frequently implied.

For a while, Reed assumed that the main difference was intelligence, as Sue was inarguably brilliant and Johnny left a lot to argue about. At the same time Johnny had a kind of physical intelligence Reed could only dream of. Unlike Reed, Johnny was never clumsy. He threw himself into physical adventures, sports, one after another achieving greatness easily. Extreme sports never made much sense to Reed but he could watch Johnny and see how they were supposed to look.

He was probably an excellent dancer. One time, after Sue and Reed had broken up, before the storm in space, Reed thought that thanks to the burdens of being an intelligent woman in a world that discounted her very existence, much less her existence as a sexual person, Johnny was likely the superior lover of the siblings.

Even geniuses think of weird things when they masturbate.

It was clear to Reed that no dumb bunnies were becoming the kind of elite pilots Johnny was poised to be. Even Ben had to grudgingly admit "the brat ass kid" was flawless in his calculations and flying.

Especially after the storm in space, after they came together as a team, Reed began to somewhat appreciate Johnny. Slowly. His intelligence was not less than Sue's, Reed was nearly positive.

They fought crime together. Johnny was always the one who threw himself into it, headfirst, with absolute grace.

"You could learn from him," Sue said, during one of their fights. They would always fight, but now it was invigorating, not disastrous.

"I know," Reed said. "Physical and emotional intelligence, not exactly my strong suit."

She laughed and said, "Somehow that came out sexy." They had the kind of sex that made Reed think Sue had to be at least Johnny's equal when it came to lovemaking.

They fought weird crime and people who used science for evil. When one of the men Ben and Johnny had served with killed himself after killing his wife, it was outside of the realm of the things they were all used to. Johnny spent a week looking lost and sad. Reed was impressed in a way at Johnny's lack of cynicism. That he could still be sad and hurt by ordinary evil.

One time Reed and Johnny were trapped in a tiny chamber that was slowly sinking to the bottom of the ocean. "We can rely on Sue to think of something," Reed said, nervously scanning the small room.

Johnny said, "Are you sure?"

"Sue's nearly as smart as I am," Reed said. "Please don't tell her I said nearly as."

Johnny smirked and tapped the walls. "Should we try to bust out?"

"No," Reed said sharply. "We'll both die." He started to go into detail about how they would die but Johnny interrupted.

"Good to know. So we just sink?"

"We wait for Sue to be brilliant," Reed said. He was aware he sounded nervous.

Johnny sat down on the floor and started playing with a pack of cards. He had found them earlier in a desk. Right before Johnny carelessly opened every drawer and triggered the chamber they were now in shooting down to the ocean. Reed felt he was being very restrained not mentioning it was Johnny's fault they currently had a 60% chance of dying.

He revised it to 50% since he did believe strongly in Sue's intelligence.

Johnny started playing solitaire.

"That's an awful game," Reed said.

"Yeah, I can see where you'd hate it. Sometimes you have to lose, there isn't much strategy and the fun is in seeing how your luck plays out," Johnny said. "Are there card games you like?"

"Bridge," Reed said. "I played that as a kid."

Johnny said, "Do you and my sister actually have sex?"

"Yes," Reed said, smiling.

"Okay, tiger. No TMI, please." Johnny said. "We'll play the way my sister and I did." When Sue and Johnny were kids, first their mother and then their father had died. They were very dependent siblings because of that, in Reed's estimation.

Reed said, "Bridge?"

"Yeah, exactly, Bridge. No, something a hundred times less boring. See, we start playing and I make up the rules and you try to guess them and then try to win."

It was surprisingly challenging. Johnny created a game on the fly that forced Reed to think and strategize and rely on luck, which he hated to do. He was so distracted he didn't notice the magnet clamping to the top of their chamber until it was firmly attached. "Now we help," he said, standing up.

When they were free, he scoured the internet for the game Johnny had created. It turned out Johnny really had created it, there was nothing like it. He told Johnny he was impressed. Johnny said, "Really? We should market it then. A fantastic card game for your little Reed and Sue nerd kids!" He wandered out of the room, already on the phone to the marketing people.

After the Silver Surfer, Johnny was definitely more serious, more dedicated. It was a very tiny margin of more, but Reed could tell. Sue was not so sure, but she frequently underestimated her brother.

"I still think you're wrong," she said. They were in bed together, enjoying the post successful coitus sense of relaxation and bliss.

"About what specifically?" He helpfully pulled the blanket from the bottom of the bed up to Sue's shoulders.

"Johnny," she said. "And thank you for the blanket."

"What about Johnny?"

She grinned at him. Really, both the Storms were incredibly aesthetically pleasing. Sue and Johnny had what were definitely million dollar smiles. At least if one measured by an arbitrary dollar amount assigned to the happiness derived from seeing their grins. Sue said, "He's not as smart as me."

"Not in the same way," Reed said. "But you're both extremely intelligent."

"Great," Sue said. "He can help you out in the lab starting tomorrow."

Reed laughed. "That's absurd, Sue."

"No, you're absurd," Sue said. Then they resumed their sexual activities to both their pleasure.

The next day, Johnny said to Reed, "Did you really tell my sister I'm as smart as she is?"

"I said you were both extremely intelligent," Reed said.

"Okay, you need your head examined," Johnny said. "My sister's different from me in every single way except some strands of DNA and eye color. She is definitely smarter."

"I don't think that's completely accurate," Reed said. "But I know better than to argue with a Storm."

Johnny rolled his eyes. Reed thought it was probably adorable in a very masculine way but he could admit he was an awful judge of masculinity. Johnny said, "Don't try to make jokes, Reed, you're awful at it. Leave that to me, maybe Ben."

"I wasn't trying to make a joke," Reed said.

"Good," Johnny said. "Very good. Keep that up." He was also adorable, Reed thought.


End file.
